Shake Appeal: Chit Chat, Doug Tuttle, the Traps, and Holy Wave

Shake Appeal is a column that highlights new garage and garage-adjacent releases. This time, Evan Minsker looks at new stuff from Michigan rippers Chit Chat, former MMOSS frontman Doug Tuttle, some archival material from Providence power trio the Traps, and a new LP from the Texas psych outfit Holy Wave.

With their debut 7", Chit Chat quickly positioned themselves as one of Michigan's most exciting bands. (Their live shows kill, too.) Now they're back with a new 7", which doesn't exactly have the high-flying Raw Power assault of "Attitude" but instead opts for a slower burn. There's a simmering, sludgy low end provided by Joel Parkkila in "Down", and Kevin McKay's slow-but-crashing pace leaves the band plenty of space to rip. They might be going for a more sprawling sound, but Nick Melody's guitar solos are still incredible and Izzy Johnson's raspy vocals roar with assertive badassery. There are just three songs here, but this 7" is an entirely cohesive statement. It's tempting to wonder what this band will be like in album mode.

It's a big week for Trouble in Mind, who put out two impressive psychedelic opuses on the same day. One's by Morgan Delt, the L.A. studio phantom who created an ornate soundscape on his debut LP. The other is perhaps a less sexy album on its surface, one by the frontman of the now-defunct band MMOSS. It may not have bright colors on the cover, and sure, "Doug Tuttle" isn't as froofy of a name as "Jacco Gardner", but this album is an impressive exercise in psychedelic world building. These songs are catchy and consistently captivating, full of studio tics and layers upon layers of well-placed instrumentals. There are guitar solos and tambourines, faraway wind instruments and sped-up tape effects. It's a bit heady and a lot of fun—and probably best heard on headphones.

John Dwyer has a special treat out on Castle Face: a record by the Traps, who hail from his old stomping ground of Providence, Rhode Island. Boom Pow Awesome Wow was recorded around 2003 and features 10 crunchy, blown-out tracks—all catchy as hell. It's proof that even when a song's recorded in a fairly rudimentary way (a lot of the percussion is largely delivered with a simple, persistent tapping sound), it can still have an undeniable power. Sure, the Traps thrive in shorter format—between two and three minutes—but they also soar in the frantic, thoroughly entertaining six-and-a-half-minute track "Get Up".

The Austin Psych Fest's Reverb Appreciation Society imprint is presenting a propulsive new banger from the Texas outfit Holy Wave. They've got the far-off, dreamy vocal wash of the shoegazers, but their guitars and hooks are anything but subtle, invoking the tone of early Kinks or Nuggets acts on "Psychological Thriller". The tone is somewhat reminiscent of their labelmates Night Beats' last album—an LP that owes quite a bit to a bygone era of psychedelic music, but with well-written songs performed by an impressively tight group of musicians.